Question

Show all work and clearly explain each step of the process that leads to each solution.

Suppose that a chain letter is started by someone who sends the letter to 6

people. One week later each recipient of the chain letter mails 6 copies of the

letter to 6 other people. If this process continues for 5 weeks after the first

letters were sent, how much money was spent on postage to mail all the letters?

(Stamps are 55 cents) Use the results in section 3.1 to obtain your answer.

Answer 1

let us solve this,

the conditions given in the problem are:

1)each person sends mail copies to 6 other person's in a week

2)this continues for five weeks

so,

First, let us count total number of letters

first week,

No. of letters=6   

second week
No. of letters=6^2

third week

                   No. of letters=6^3

fourth week

                  No. of letters=6^4

fifth week
                 No. of letters=6^5

So, total letters= 6+6^2 +6^3+6^4+6^5=9330 letters

Thus, in five weeks the total amount spent in mailing the chain of letters=9330*0.55=$5131.5